Date attended: October 29
At first I was anxious and a bit excited to attend this workshop, not because it fulfilled the career exploration requirement at Baruch, but because I really need tips on how to do a good interview, that’s one thing I’m really nervous about when it comes to landing a job, and I’m sure this applies to almost everyone.
When I got there, I saw that the room was packed, so Eleanore, Joann, and I grabbed extra chairs and sat in the back. Once the presentation started I was bored already. We were all hoping that it would not take up what was remaining of the time left in our break, but to our misfortune it did. The lady (I forgot her name) talked about the importance of each of us having a personal pitch–which is basically a 30-second to 2-minute mini-speech that you give in which you “sell yourself,” or tell the interviewer about your strengths and accomplishments, and why you’re the best candidate for the job.
We were each given a sheet which we had to fill out to help make our personal pitch, and then we had to practice it with the person (in my case it was four of us: Samuel, Eleanore, Joann, and myself) sitting next to us. We didn’t get very far because most of us had close to nothing written on our papers–simply because we didn’t have many personal accomplishments, and of course we wanted to just get the workshop over with, get our passports signed, and get out of there.
After giving our personal pitch and receiving feedback from our peers, the rest of the workshop basically consisted of us sitting and listening to the rest of the presentation, which obviously made a lot of us restless. We learned about proper interview attire, mock interviews at the Starr Career Development Center, what companies look for in a potential employee, among many other things. Yes it’s scary–a lot of things comprise a interview, but the most important thing to remember for a successful interview is to be prepared.
Overall the workshop was pretty long and seemed to drag on, but it was pretty helpful in giving insight on how to have a good interview.